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Last week when I arrived to Bangladesh, the immigration officials
there were positively ecstatic to see a foreign tourist entering
the country.

I’ve also been to places in Africa and the South Pacific where
you’re greeted upon arrival by dancing tribespeople singing songs
of welcome.

It’s not quite the same in the Land of the Free. In fact, before
they even let people in the country, they program us to be afraid
and intimidated.

For one thing, all the immigration officers are armed. There’s
absolutely no reason for a government agent to carry a loaded
pistol when all he does is stamp a passport. This is EXTREMELY
uncommon in the rest of the world. Only in the Land of the Free.

Just like the airport security farce, which has millions of
travelers assume the “I surrender” pose inside a radiation
machine, US immigration checkpoints are there to train people to
be afraid and submit to the state’s authority.

When you step back and look at the whole government apparatus,
it’s apparent that this culture of fear and intimidation applies
across the entire spectrum.

We’re programmed, for example, to be terrified of the IRS. It’s
to the point that getting audited consistently ranks among
people’s top fears in the Land of the Free, right up there with
snakes and unexpected death. It’s quite sad, actually.

And whether this Soviet-style idea to target opposition political
groups came from the top or from the lower ranks, it smacks of an
entire organizational culture gone awry… one that thinks it has
unlimited power and authority to squash anyone it wants.

We’re also programmed to fear the police… who are more commonly
donning combat boots, assault rifles, and these hideous Urban
Assault Vehicles as a show of force, as if they’re on patrol in
Kandahar.

And we’re programmed to subordinate ourselves to the interests of
the state… whether it’s “shared sacrifice”, i.e. everyone must
universally suffer because politicians are incompetent, or
ratting out our neighbors to Homeland Security (if you see
something, say something) or the IRS.

There’s so much more. We’re told that we can be attacked by
drones, held in military detention, or have our children taken
away by the government. These are powerful tools in stoking a
culture of fear to keep an entire civilization under control.

Yet these constant abuses of power are diametrically opposed to
how a free society is supposed to conduct itself.

You’re probably aware of a particularly fitting quote, most
frequently credited to Thomas Jefferson– “Where the people fear
the government, you have tyranny. Where the government fears the
people you have liberty.” It’s absolutely true.

(There is no evidence that Jefferson ever said this, nor is the
phrase contained in his works. It was first seen in print in John
Basil Barnhill’s article, ‘Indictment of Socialism No. 3′ in
1914.)

Jefferson did write in a 1789 letter to Welsh philosopher Richard
Price that “wherever the people are well informed they can be
trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so
far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to
set them to rights.”

Unfortunately this isn’t happening; ‘the people’ aren’t rising up
to set things right.

And this is an important reminder: we cannot rely on a government
or society to provide us with freedom or the economic opportunity
which stems from it. We can’t wait for tens of millions of people
to ‘wake up’ and ‘vote the bums out’. Or take to the streets.

If history is any indicator, the fear and intimidation will
likely get worse. This problem doesn’t just go away, and it
doesn’t resolve itself.

The only viable strategy is to abandon the herd and focus on what
we can all do as individuals to safeguard our wealth, preserve
our liberties, and ensure the continued safety of our families.